


Dental Work

by Mad_Merry



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Body Image, Canon Related, Character Study, F/M, Implied Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 10:35:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14353716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Merry/pseuds/Mad_Merry
Summary: "I didn't always look like this. Short, scrawny. And big ol' teeth."





	Dental Work

When he was young, his mother used to tell him that when he got older, bigger, wiser, his tusks wouldn’t matter.  _“They’ll see you for the fine man I know you’ll be.”_  And sometimes, when her touch would skirt over his hair, her smile warm and loving, he’d believe her. It never lasted. Not with the lingering stares of strangers, the disapproving clicking of tongues as he passed, the jeering and painful words of children his own age. It made him cry, made him feel ugly and unwanted, no matter how many times his mother would coo to him that he wasn’t the problem, that he was a handsome young man, and people would see that one day.

“When!” He had yelled in his seventeen year old hysteria, heart broken by a pretty elf girl that made his heart twist and stutter. Cleria, her name had been. Long black hair, high cheekbones even so young, beautiful and kind with lovely pale green eyes. She used to send him smiles in the market when they passed one another, hadn’t stared too much at the seemingly always growing tusks protruding from his mouth. He had thought--maybe. Maybe.

All that had come crashing down when in soft words he had asked her something that at the time had seemed so important. Had watched the color drain from her face in dread as she started to shake his head before he finished.

“No.” She had said, voice trying to go for gentle, but stilted at the edges. “No. I’m sorry.” 

She wasn’t sorry.

Fjord doesn’t want to say he did it because of her. No, it was a crescendo of events. A low boiling bot that earned another piece of wood with every lingering stare, with every slur and poke at his appearance. Of his worth as a person.

Half-monster thing, Nott had called him.  _Monster. Monster. Monster._

He just wanted to be normal. Maybe it’s why he started to pick up other people’s ticks, why he’d watched the older boys and men saunter about as if they belonged in the world, why he’d watch the way they tipped their head, released their sighs. The way they laugh and curse and trip and be flawed yet flawless in his eyes. He’d mimic and practice until his walks were less of a stomp and more of a gate, until his shoulders were straight and his head was high, because if he can’t be handsome then he’ll at least be approachable.

It works. He smiles and keeps his voice low until peoples guards come down. Looking past the orc-ish nose and eyes and teeth. Until they let him near them with his big scary tusks and carry their baskets, help with their fishnets, chop their wood. He becomes the go-to, the boy you can rely on for work.

Go to Fjord, he knows how to catch fish. Go to Fjord, he’ll plow your land for a few coin. Hire Fjord, he’s a strong young man. Young man. Young man. His waist trims with the work, his shoulders broaden, the last of that dreaded young-en fat melting off his features and body and leaving something less awkward.

But it’s not enough.

“Do it,” He remembers slurring, two pairs of hands pushing down on his shoulders and a crew-mate standing in front of him with a look that means too much and not enough to change his mind. There’s too much whiskey in his system and not enough real confidence to listen to the tiny voice in his head saying  _don’t don’t don’t._

He had to.

“If you say so, Fjord.” He remembers his breathing picking up, heart hammering against his chest and clenching his eyes shut the moment the clamps closed around one tusk.

White hot pain. He swallows the blood, almost gags on that alone and let’s himself give one ragged sob before he rasps, “The other one.”

It feels wrong, sacrilegious, but it feels like the final piece to a gods awful puzzle. Doesn’t matter he feels hallow in the chest, in the mouth, in the body. Not when he can blend with the crowds just a little easier. Being a big fella doesn’t draw you a lot of attention. Neither does a big nose or yellow eyes. It’s the tusks, the tusks. The tusks.

“You are very handsome.” Jester had said it so matter-of-factly to him, so out of the blue when he was carving wood with a careful precision that keeps his mind off the precarious sword in his hilt and the sound of rushing water in his ears. It makes him falter, dig too deep into the twig to look up at her with a wide gaze.

“Pardon?” 

“You’re very handsome,” She repeats, swishes the sides of her dress in soft waves that Fjord hates how he could watch her twirl in it forever. Fjord has grown to pride himself on being quick with his words, with his charm and ability to disarm people because it’s all he knows. But this little tiefling--with her odd habits and obsession with pastries leaves him speechless in a single moment. 

“Well--I--” I’m not. He almost says it, feels it in his bones as an automatic reaction from years and years of being told the opposite.

_You’re an ugly bastard, but least you’re reliable. I don’t think you’re cute. You’re just not anyone’s type. You got those big ol’ teeth._  A clench of his jaw, needing to break his focus away from her pretty eyes and pretty hair and-- “Thank you.” He manages, ducks his head down farther to keep working at the wood with a new found vigor. Dips his tongue into the gaps he’s long adjusted to, hates the combination of heat to his face and the fall to his stomach.

Maybe one day, he’ll believe her.

**Author's Note:**

> SO as you can see, I wanted to take a gander at writing for Critical Role. I've been tossing around a lot of ideas, but after listening to episode 11 this really just wrote itself. It's short and....not sweet, but it was interesting to explore the implication of that episode, and what negative body images can do to you when you're so young.   
> Plus, my heart really just belongs to ANY character that Travis plays. Honestly. I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
